So their Transparent ID agent doesn't work very well at all. It's like the rest of their products, actually. It's not identifying users with the DC Agent. So I restarted the DC Agent, and still no go. I restarted the User Service and still no go. I add a secondary DC Agent to the Policy Server, and nothing. I remove both from the Policy Server and add both to the policy server ... now it works. This is the biggest piece of shit software ever... it completely sucks in that it's made for small to medium businesses, not the enterprise.

"A detailed description of the background to Kenneth Maxwell’s resignation as book reviewer for the Western Hemisphere at Foreign Affairs magazine and as a senior fellow and director of Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. This paper examines the role of Henry Kissinger, his associate William D. Rogers, and the magazine’s editor, James F. Hoge, Jr. Included here for the first time is the full text of the letter on Operation Condor which Foreign Affairs will not publish. The dispute is placed within the historical context of Kissinger’s policy toward the Southern Cone military dictatorships of the 1970s."

Grab your free copy here: http://drclas.fas.harvard.edu/uploads/images/104/maxwell_working_paper.pdf

So I am totally convinced that this place has some wierd chemical, dust, mold, or otherwise strangeness that gives me a headache... big time. Some of the times, it's legitimate... I am hung over. All other times, within 1/2 hour of me getting in, a huge headache starts to set in. At first I thought it was the monitor. Then switched monitors. Then I thought it might be the refresh rate on the machine, changed resolutions, even changed machines (figuring linux would work better with a different video card).

If I go outside to take a walk I feel better.

Hrm, that's interesting, it seems to have gotten worse since I STOPPED smoking. Hang, on, let me try a piece of nicotine gum.... nope, nothing yet... Usually when I had the no-smoking headaches, I would pop a piece of nicotine gum and it would work perfectly. Well, it kinda didn't work... So I am back to square one.

I'll just head to lunch, and it should be cleared up by then. Thank god we're moving to 833 next month.

So I am selling off a bunch of books that I haven't touched in years on Amazon. I figure, I haven't even referenced them, most of them are given to me by people back when I went to Drexel U... screw it.

So a set of books that have been selling like hotcakes are these books on the Norse Gods and Goddesses. I ship one of those books away to Alabama... a correctional facility, no less... i figured it was a guard or something (I have stuff shipped to work all the time.) Two weeks later, I get this letter from the Alabama Department of Corrections notifying me that my package has been held for contraband. The inmate needs to submit an official appleal to the warden in order to let my book through.

It was one of those carbonish pieces of paper... you know the kind where you usually keep one of three copies... I would always end up with Pink. Now, the elections were around the corner, my names are probably on 20 million government databases for my excersizing my constitutional rights. THEN it dawns on me that this could be an inmate. Of course, I quickly begin to freak out.

"What if this inmate is phishing for names and addresses?! Now he's got mine! OMG, Alabama?! They're going to take me away. It's Bush country..." Slowly a million different ways I could be busted and everything that I've ever done which could even slightly be considered "questionable" comes into my head. Brad calls me paranoid... and I ask him for the URL of one of the credit agencys so I can put an 'alert' on my credit information. Phew, I was saved just in time... my credit information is safe.

At a party a month or two later, I am telling this story to a friend of mine, and she says that the those books are typically white supremacist material. I begin to freak out anew. Could he have gotten the book from an otherwise most ironic source? Not only am I a leftist (of the European kind), but am Hispanic, AND gay.

Well, long story short, I got another order for another one of them Norse books... It's going to a Tennesee town. I am out of the religion business once and for all.

* = names of places and things have been changed to put my paranoidic mind at rest.

So I bitched about the fact that the art museum is only open 9-5 and that if you are a normal working cog you won't be able to give yourself a much needed respite for the brain and/or body. Here was the reply ... i wasn't expecting any.

---

From: Herwick, Edgar <eherwick@philamuseum.org>
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 17:07:59 -0500
Subject: Friday evenings at the Art Museum

Thank you for your interest in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I hope all is well. I am sorry to hear that you were disappointed to learn about the Museum hours and can understand how you feel. I want to make sure that you know about Art After 5, our new Friday evening program. On Fridays, the entire Museum is open until 8:45 p.m., with jazz and world music in the Great Stair Hall and food and beverages available for purchase. It is a fantastic program that is well attended and a great chance to explore the Museum in the evening every week. If you'd like more information about Art After 5, please visit us at http://www.philamuseum.org/events/Friday/index.shtml. I hope you'll have a chance to enjoy this new program. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me directly. Thanks again for your interest and have a great day.